


Summer Redundant

by tabaqui



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 14:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabaqui/pseuds/tabaqui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barely not-feral Connor goes to stay with the Summers girls to keep him safe.  Dawn...is annoyed.  Mostly.     Title is from 'Wanting is - What?' by Robert Browning.   Originally posted in December of 2009.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Redundant

_Wanting is—what?_  
Summer redundant,  
Blueness abundant,  
Where is the blot? 

 

 

"I can't believe you're doing this. I mean – seriously? You're really doing this?" Dawn watched as Buffy smoothed the blanket on Buffy's old bed – looked around one more time. Maybe kinda sad, but really – who cared? Buffy was getting _Mom's_ old room. With the attached bathroom. And the Queen bed and the TV in the wardrobe. What did _she_ have to be sad about?

"Dawn, I told you already. I just...have to."

"Have to because otherwise the world is gonna go kablooey, or have to because _Angel_ asked?"

"The world isn't going to go kablooey."

"Oh, so, Angel snaps his fingers and you jump. I thought you were over him! He tried to kill you!"

"Everybody's tried to kill me, Dawn." Buffy sat down on the bed and sighed, and this time Dawn didn't think about Mom's old room, or the TV, or the fact that a _stranger_ was going to be in their house. She just thought that Buffy looked...tired.

"Yeah, well. If you weren't such a total monkey-brain...." Dawn flopped down next to Buffy and sighed, too. "I'm _sorry_ , it's just...it's weird. And kinda...scary."

"What's scary? You know you don't have anything to be scared of, Dawn. Not while I'm around." Buffy's index finger stroked along a strand of Dawn's hair, lifting and curling it and Dawn pretended she didn't notice.

"Well...is he human? I mean...Angel's a vampire, you know? Not really alive or anything and...Spike said vampires can't make babies."

Buffy stiffened, dropping the lock of Dawn's hair. "When were you and Spike talking about...making babies?"

"We weren't! Ew, Buffy. I just. I told him what was going on, is all. He was doing his lurky-starey thing under the tree the other night and I was bored so I made him help me with my Algebra." Dawn sat up and picked at a hole in her jeans. "Vampires can't do Algebra _at all_. Didn't they have math back then?"

"Dawn! Focus! Why were you talking to Spike?!" Buffy jumped up and stood there with her hands on her skinny hips, frowning, and Dawn rolled her eyes.

"I was talking to Spike because he's my...he's...he took care of me, okay? Just 'cause you guys hate each other now doesn't mean _I_ have to hate him." 

"Hello, can you please get in line for the cluebus? He's a _vampire_ , the thing I slay?"

"So's Angel! And don't tell me about Angel's soul again, please. You always get this...constipated look." Buffy stared, brows scrunching together and her mouth pursing. "Yeah, just like that."

"You are _so_ grounded."

 

Connor was weird. Skinny, jumpy, with long ratty hair and these big wounded eyes. He looked like a Precious Moments figurine or something. He holed up in Buffy's old room or scuttled around all hunched over and freaky, hugging himself. Like he expected the chairs to jump up and grab him.

It made Dawn twitch. She didn't even have the excuse of school to not be around him, because it was summer break and there was _nothing_ to do. Some stupid demons had wrecked the public pool, and everybody was acting crazy, and Dawn was stuck at home most of the time, reading or watching TV and watching their new, weirdo roommate slink around the house like a stray cat.

"Just _stop it_ , okay?" Dawn snarled, twisting around on the couch to glare at where Connor was half-inside the curtains, peeking out at the street and twitching every time somebody won something on _The Price is Right_.

He stared at her, and Dawn let out a squeak of irritation, spilling her corn chips.

"Stop creeping around like some kind of...of serial killer or something and sit down! Or go hide in your room but quit being so weird right where I can see you!" That was it, really – he was always on the _edges_. Never right where he should be and Dawn was jumpy enough as it was, with demons and vampires and hell gods. Freaky PTSD boys with long fingers and pink lips were just too dang much.

Connor kept staring, and then his chin went down and his eyes narrowed and he looked...scary. Kinda Spike-scary, when Spike was telling one of his really _good_ stories. "I don't have to do what you say." His voice was kinda hoarse.

"Yeah, you _do_. This is my house and I say sit down or go away." Connor made a weird kind of grimace with his face, like he wanted to bite her, and Dawn shivered. Then he dropped the curtain and slunk around the end of couch and sat. Well, more like hunched, all curled in on himself and poised to leap up again, but Dawn didn't care. At least he wasn't _lurking_.

"Geez, was that so hard? Oh my god!" Dawn rolled her eyes at the bleach-blonde in a tube top on the TV. Her big, fat boobs were about to pop right out of the pink top. "A hand mixer does not cost a hundred bucks! What an idiot." Connor didn't say anything, just huddled into the arm of the couch and Dawn blew her hair out of her face and ate another chip and ignored him.

 

For the next five days, it was the same. He crept around until she glared at him, and then he'd sit in a huddle, watching the TV. Or maybe watching her. She swore she'd caught him looking a few times, but he was sneaky. It got as boring as the lurking, so Dawn started making weird snacks to see if he'd eat anything. First easy stuff, like cheese and salami on crackers, and then tuna sandwiches cut up into little triangles with sweet pickles in a bowl and then peanut butter and banana and Cap'n Crunch cereal on mini-bagels.

After figuring out the food was for _both_ of them, he did eat. He ate like he was starving and then looked at her in the most pitiful way possible until she sighed and rolled her eyes and went to find something else. When she was stocking up at the grocery store on microwave popcorn and Honey Buns and trail mix, Buffy just stared at her, annoyed.

"What? Connor eats a lot." 

"Maybe if he was eating real food instead of all this junk, he wouldn't be so hungry," Buffy said, and Dawn had to consider that. So she got Lunchables and the really good-for-you granola bars and chocolate milk because – hey, strong bones. "Thank god Angel sends babysitting money," Buffy muttered, and Dawn tipped a whole box of Ramen into the cart.

 

"Oh cool, a Jurassic Park marathon!" Dawn bounced down onto the couch with a bowl of popcorn and a plate of cut up apples with caramel dip and Connor only flinched a little. 

"What's a marathon?"

"It's like....when they show all the movies from a series all at once. Or like – the other day, when it was all _Friends_ all day on channel 35? That's a marathon. These are really cool movies. Dinosaurs!"

Connor took a handful of popcorn and shoved it into his mouth. His hair was actually combed today, and he had on a decent shirt, too, a dark-green t-shirt that actually fit him. His bare feet were curled up under him and he stuck a finger into the caramel and sniffed it curiously, crunching.

"Dude, no fingers in the dip. Use the apple slices."

"What are dinosaurs?"

"Really cool monsters. Like giant lizards. Only they died like – millions of years ago when they all got cold or whatever and in the first movie this crazy guy grows some only he screws them up and they're all bloodthirsty and stuff." 

Dawn unscrewed her mango-strawberry Power-Aide and took a big gulp, then settled back happily to watch the dinosaurs tear things up.

 

Three hours later, the TV was playing, forgotten, as Connor showed her how he'd stalked a _k'k'yn_ with only a stone spear and a knife, leaping down off the top of Grandma Summer's breakfront to hack and slash the couch cushion and dining room chair stand-ins with a butter knife.

"And then I slashed across the back of its neck, like _this_ , cutting its spine, and then its tail whipped around and caught me right here –" Connor came up onto his knees and pulled up his t-shirt, showing Dawn a long, puckered scar that went from his ribs to his hip.

"Oh my god! Did it hurt?"

"No!" Connor looked down at the scar, fingertips rubbing it absently. "Well, yeah. But I didn't notice. It was still thrashing around and I wasn't sure if it was really dead or not. So I jumped on its head –" Connor launched himself at the chair again, wrapping his arm around the back. "And I shoved my spear into its eye! And then it was dead." He grinned, flushed and mussed and with a smear of chocolate Pop-Tart at the corner of his mouth and Dawn....

Well, what the heck was a girl supposed to do? She was a little crazy with sugar and dinosaurs and freaky stories about real monsters and he'd pulled up his _shirt_ , and his hair was in his eyes, and he looked about eighteen, or at least sixteen, and....

"What was that?" Connor asked, and Dawn rolled her eyes.

"It was a kiss, dumbass. Wait." Dawn watched as Connor put his fingertips to his lips, a kind of dreamy look on his face. "Didn't you ever get kissed before?"

"I...don't... _yes_? I mean...maybe, I...guess."

"You're such a liar!" Dawn whacked Connor in the shoulder and he jerked back, glaring at her. Then he slumped a little, sliding sideways off the slain cushion. 

"Okay, so, no. So what? It's not – I mean, it wasn't important. I had a lot of other stuff to learn."

"Guess that's why you suck at it," Dawn said, picking at the raveling edge of her jeans shorts. It didn't surprise her one bit when Connor made a grumpy sort of outraged noise and put his hand around her neck and pulled her in for another kiss. It was kinda sloppy, but not bad.

"I don't suck at it," he said, his forehead touching hers and his bangs tangling in both their eyelashes. 

"You could use some practice, though," Dawn said back, and this time he grinned.


End file.
